[danenania]

It's a fail-safe.

With a credit card, you've introduced a new failure mode where you can end up in debt. If you do it right, you won't, but the cc companies know that a lot of people will mess it up--that's their business model.

It's a bit like with alcohol. If you never drink, you can be 100% confident you'll never become an alcoholic. If you do drink, even a little bit, that chance goes up. Plenty of people are able to drink responsibly, sure, but I can understand wanting to avoid the possibility entirely.

[pathseeker]

> It's a fail-safe.

But it's more dangerous than using a debit card where a stolen card ties up real money during the dispute window.

Also, you can have a credit card limit set low enough that maxing it out still means you can pay it off.

[dazc]

Say you're self-employed and your best client suddenly stops paying. They have a good track record and assure you it's just a technical blip or something. You have bills to pay so request an increase in credit limit. Then your client's blip turns into something much worse, and on it goes...

That's how people become unstuck. Very few people start off with bad intentions.

[danenania]

"But it's more dangerous than using a debit card where a stolen card ties up real money during the dispute window."

That's true--my solution to this is not keeping too much money in my checking account.